Truth Or Fiction

Chapter Fifty Eight

"Are you sure you want to read?" Jasmine whispered to Aladdin as he reached over and took a scroll.

"I'm sure," Aladdin whispered back.

Ben leaned back in his chair, staring at the pages in front of him in shock. This...this just couldn't be right.

Benji sighed. "Sadly, it was scroll-me. It was."

"Starting this scroll on a cheery note I see," Robin shook her head.

It'd taken him three whole weeks but he had finally gotten through the records of the past twenty years.

Akiho rubbed his forehead. "Please tell me you at least slept in those three weeks!"

"Of course I did," Benji nodded.

"Forgive me if I don't readily believe you Ben!"

Elsa leaned over to Kristoff. "I feel like I've missed something."

"Oh apparently Prince Ben has taken to sleeping at his desk due to all the paperwork he's been doing," Kristoff told her. "Working through meals and everything—and Akiho has been taking him sandwiches which I still need to talk to him about."

He hadn't wanted to take so long but between classes, homework, and meetings...well he did need to eat and sleep after all.

"He can be taught!" Hyllus exclaimed with a grin.

Macaria chuckled. "I think you've been hanging around Philoctetes a bit too much haven't you?"

There were only so many hours in the day.

He had even brought some of the records to bed with him, just to have a chance to make more progress on getting the records examined.

"So close," Emir sighed, shaking his head.

"Hey, at least it's not at his desk," Akiho said. "Progress right?"

Part of him was thankful at least that he was king...at least that way he wouldn't have to ask for permission to access the full manifests and shipping records. He could just access them, no questions asked.

"Well you probably could have accessed the records rather easily when your dad was King," Emir pointed out.

"Ah but then he would have run into the questions he didn't want asked," Akiho reminded his best friend.

"Oh right!"

Beast shook his head. He wished he had known about all of this sooner but at least he knew now and could do something. Before it had to fall on his son's shoulders.

Ben ran a hand through his hair as he looked at the last page in his hand. With the exception of the first six months of the Isle's creation, every month had seen a delay in the food they'd been sending to the Isle.

"Why is that a surprise?" Squirmy asked softly.

"Yeah, everyone knows about the delays," Squeaky nodded.

Sammy sighed. "I don't think scroll-Prince Ben knows though," she told her brothers. "Or at least he didn't know before now since the Prince Ben in the room knows about it."

"Why? Hasn't scroll-Prince Ben been paying attention?"

"...Celia? CJ? Which one of you taught my brothers sarcasm?"

CJ chuckled. "I think that was Jade actually."

At first the delays had been small...almost imperceptible. They had been as small as a day or at most a week....and then four years into the Isle's creation, they seemed to pick up. The delays he meant, not the deliveries.